A book for younger readers about magical animals. Let's see how it holds up. Spoilers ahead.
Aldwyn is just your regular streetcat who lives his daily life in constant danger. One day, he more or less accidentally is given to a boy, who is a wizard's apprentice. In the world they live in, each wizard or witch has a Familiar: A special animal with magical abilities. Each Familiar has a unique gift, and the magician chooses his or her animal based on what they want and can.
Because he has a vague resemblace to a rare race of telepathic cats, Aldwyn gets adopted by the boy Jack. He goes to a small, peaceful cottage in the woods, where he meets the wizard who is Jack's tutor, and his two other apprentices and their Familiars: Skylar and Gilbert.
Aldwyn lies to them that he is magical in order to stay, since he likes the life as a pet much more than the dangerous life on the streets, but when the Queen goes mad, kills the tutor, and imprisons the children, it is up to him and his two Familiar-friends to save them.
Overall a bit of a meh. It started out pretty boring, then got okay, but then it went back to boring again.
First we have our characters...who have just one trait. Aldwyn is brave, Gilbert is not the brightest and Skylar is slightly vain. Oh and she practices necromancy. Help.
The story is about as basic as can get: defeat the bad guys, save the friends! I hoped for some original twists on it, and there were maybe one or two of this, but overall it just remained as cliché as any other fantasy book.
The pacing is either too fast or too slow, it never feels quite right. Maybe somewhere in the earlier part of the "second act", but besides that it's hit and miss.
I did like the setting and perspective here. Usually your fantasy will either be in the wild with animals or in the medieval town with humans...here they did the medieval town with animals, that was rather unique...but also the only thing about it, really.
That said, I didn't really like the way the magic was written here.
Overall, it's just a bit meh. I was about to give it 2.5 (AKA 3 on Goodreads) stars, but the third act is just way too rushed, and the fact that Aldwyn, after teaching us the lesson that you don't need powers to be special, turns out to be a real Familiar after all, is just not good. Do not play with your moral book, it's like Writing 101.
Rating: 2/5
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